If they don't, we'll treat you to a fruit-bar like you used to munch when Klein's Bakery and Moritz's Cotton Exchange each faced the other across Poplar Street and on the alley.
We couldn't exactly call it the midnight oil which we were burning at the time, but it was somewhere between ten and eleven o'clock when the general knocked on the office door.
That was a fine party which the Nash family gave last Tuesday evening for visiting Harvester personnel in the garden at White Pillars. The barbecue was excellent and the company was even better. (We say this advisedly, for didn't we sit between Wilda and Theresa Hand?)
It was drill-night for the Guard, which explained Galla's presence at the corner of Walnut and Main at that time of night for, presumably, the C. O. is the last man to leave the Armory just as the skipper is the last man to leave the ship.
Anyhow we opened the door, threw down the welcome-mat, and stood at some semblance of attention until Major-General Paxton put us at ease with a charge of grape-shot and canister, conversationally that is. For he never fails to level off at the inherent dangers of what he calls our weakening elephant memory.
“About half what you write is true,” concedes the general, “and, as for the other half, neither you nor anyone else knows whether it's true or not.”
Whereupon he disclaimed any recollection of being in the group which trailed the Ham girls (Goldie and Bess Gene) and their dates, George Griffin and Old Stuff, all the way from Willie Elkas' Bijou Theatre (where the Lake Theatre is now) to the Ham residence at the corner of South Main and Moore Streets. And this on an evening not long after Galla had arrived home for summer vacation from his freshman year at Washington & Lee.
Not only were you in the group, General Paxton, you were also the ring-leader. George Griffin is long-gone, and cannot be recalled to testify, but Goldie and Bess, praise the Lord, are still with us. The former lives in Houston, Texas, where she is a practicing MD and a fine one. The latter, Bess Ham Harmon, lives here and works for Paramount. Contact either or both of them and we'll bet they back us up.
It was good to see Dan Boone, that old Saltillo, Mississippi boss, who helped put and keep his company in the big leagues when it comes to motor vehicles. It was also the first time we had seen Mr. Boone since the passing of Helen, his wonderful wife who, incidentally, was a schoolmate and close friend of one of our favorite kinfolks, Martha West Newcomb Gates of Little Rock.
Mrs. Boone was a person of great charm yet one who never hesitated to speak her mind, and what an alert mind it was, with a sense of humor to match. Dan says he's lonely without her, and we know what he means.
After supper, Elder Jere suggested that we tune up the box (thereby low-rating the banjo since box, definitely, is colloquial for guitar) and work up a little singing on the side. After a few false-starts the boys got going with “Workin’ on the Railroad,” which they handled passing fair.
Suddenly we sensed an upsurge in the harmony. No foolin', it was good! And we didn't have to look around from behind the banjo to find out why. There’s only one tenor voice in this part of the country that runs all around, in and out of the melody, like that—and that voice is Billy McKinney's.
Oh boy, what can't Billy do with such old time favorites as Wild Irish Rose, Big Yellow Tulip, My Little Girl, the Stephen Foster stuff, and so on right straight through the album!
